Severance

"Severance deservedly got a lot of attention when it came out in 2018. It’s a brilliant book, the one on this list that I most strongly recommend to people trying to take their mind off the news. It takes the issues that the Newsflesh books also consider and politicizes them in a different way. It is about the intersection of immigration and global capitalism in modern cities and the breakdown of human communication and meaningful human contacts that occur as a consequence. Golden age mysteries and other classics of escapist fiction are another route, but even the best escapist fiction deals with weighty issues. I hope that these books might suspend, for a little while, some of the anxiety we feel while following moment-by-moment news of disasters in the media. Personally I find that entrance into the world of immersive fiction itself offers pleasure and relief from stress, even if the novel’s content is dark or dystopian."